Business awards nominees announced

Every year at the London Business Achievement Awards, people are surprised to find out about the range of innovation in the city.

When the videos of the finalists are shown at the ceremony, the chamber’s chief executive, Gerry Macartney, said he can sense the audience’s amazement at the diversity and ingenuity among the city’s entrepreneurs.

This year is no different. The finalists for the Business Achievement Awards were announced on Wednesday.

“We do a lot during the year to complain about things, but we don’t often celebrate things,” Macartney said. “This is a great time to do that.”

London has a lot to boast about, including a business awards ceremony that attracts the largest crowd in the country. The crowd of 1,300 to 1,400 who will be on hand for the awards on March 20, is bigger than the ceremonies in Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary.

Macartney said the provincial version of the event only will attract 600 to 700 people.

The big party in London, he said, has a lot to do with the exciting and diverse businesses that are thriving in the city.

The digital sector is particularly robust and starting to rival Kitchener-Waterloo, once considered the hub of Canadian digital information technology innovation.

London is ranked tenth in the country for the sector, but is quickly rising up the ranks, Macartney said.

Some of those companies crop up in the nominations. “That’s not because we’re looking for that sector particularly; it’s because they’re doing exceptional things,” he said.

Also recognized is the backbone of southwestern Ontario’s economy. Agribusinesses – this year represented the London Brewing Co-operative Inc., a craft brewery and Nuts for Cheese, a non-dairy cheese company – were, for too long, treated with some ambivalence. However, Macartney said, the chamber re-instituted an agricultural committee “to recognize and celebrate those successes.”

All the awards, Macartney said, never cease to amaze and surprise him, even after 23 years at the helm.

“We learn something every year by way of this process. I think that feeds on itself,” he said.

“Success breeds success.”

FINALISTS FOR THE LONDON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUSINESS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

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